Assignment 3

Q1:
ᴓ= 07’, Feb 13th, Local time = 10:00
n=31+13=44
B= ) = -36.59

E=9.87sin (2B)-7.53cos (B)-1.5sin (B) = -14.6 min

Solar time = Standard time – 4(Lst – Llocal) +E = 9:28
ɷ= =

δ = 23.45sin (360 * ) = -13.9

Cos( θz ) = sin(ᴓ) + sin(δ) + cos(δ) cos(ᴓ)cos(ɷ)=0.644

θz=49.
Shade length = Height * tan (θz) = 1*tan (49. =1.1875m
Sin (ᴕs) = δ) Sin (ɷ) / Cos (ɑ) = 0.9998
ᴕs= 5 (east of south)
Q2:

ᴓ=2 28’, ̅ = 8.8, a = 0.28, b = 0.48, at 9:00 AM (solar time)

ɷ=4

δ=23.45sin (360* ) =-20.9

ɷs=cos-1(-tan (ᴓ) tan (δ)) =79.

̅ ɷs = 10.6 hours

Ho= sc (1+0.033cos ( ) (ɷs sin (ᴓ) sin (δ) +cos (ᴓ) cos(δ) sin(ɷs) ) =
23749.3
̅
Hg=Ho a + b ( ̅̅̅̅̅̅̅ ) = 16113.676 KJ/m2.day

̅̅̅̅ ̅̅̅̅ ̅̅̅̅

Hd=Hg (1.39- 4.027 * ̅̅̅̅ + 5.531 (̅̅̅̅) - 3.108 (̅̅̅̅) = 36555.83 KJ/m2.day
Q3 :
n= 69, ᴓ=13, A=1196, B=0.151, C=0.067

δ= 23.45sin (360* ) =20.

Solar ɷ Cos(θz) Ibn Id Ig

time
9-10 37.5 .803 990.98 66.395 862.152
10-11 22.5 0.922 1015.32 68.026 1005.05
11-12 7.5 0.984 1025.856 68.73 1078.17
12-1 -7.5 0.984 1025.856 68.73 1078.17
1-2 -22.5 0.922 1015.32 68.026 1005.05
Q4:
Estimate the average daily global radiation on a horizontal surface at
Baroda during the month of Match if the average
sunshine hours per day are 9.5.

̅ ̅

( )

( )

̅
( )
̅

{ ( )} ⁄
Q5:
Example 3.5 on page 77 of some notes by SukHatme (Textbook).
The following data is obtained around mid-day on a clear day at Nagpur

Date: Jine 19,1968

LAP (Solar time) 09:00 – 10:00 – 11:00 – 12:00 – 13:00 – 14:00 -
10:00 11:00 12:00 13:00 14:00 15:00
Global Radiation ( 67.6 77.0 79.3 84.5 79.5 64.0
langleys/h)
Diffuse Radiation 17.1 15.2 17.6 18.6 16.9 17.6
(langleys/h)

Compare these measure values with values which would be predicted at

the half hour ( 09:30 , 10:30 , etc.) by the ASHRAE method.

Nagpur , ,

( ‫) سنة كبيسة‬
 ( )

LAT
⁄ ⁄ ⁄ ⁄
09:30 +37.50 0.8223 849.7 698.7 113.0 811.8
10:30 +22.50 0.9340 875.3 817.6 116.4 934.0
11:30 +7.50 0.9919 886.6 879.4 117.9 997.3
12:30 -7.50 0.9919 886.6 879.4 117.9 997.3
13:30 -22.50 0.9340 875.3 817.6 116.4 934.0
14:30 -37.59 0.8223 849.7 698.7 113.0 811.8

Comparing the Values 

LAT Global Radiation Beam Radiation Diffuse Radiation
⁄ ⁄ ⁄
Predicted Measured Predicted Measured Predicted Measured
09:30 811.8 786.2 698.7 587.3 113.0 198.9
10:30 934.0 895.5 817.6 718.7 116.4 176.8
11:30 997.3 922.3 879.4 717.6 117.9 204.7
12:30 997.3 982.7 879.4 766.4 117.9 216.3
13:30 934.0 924.6 817.6 728.1 116.4 196.5
14:30 811.8 744.3 698.7 539.6 113.0 204.7
Q6:
What is the equation of time?? Give its approximate range and sketch its
variation.
Correction factor , Which takes into account the perturbations in the
earth’s rate of rotation which affect the time the sun crosses the
observer’s meridian. The difference in minutes between solar time &
standard time is

From the sketches, the equation of time has a range of about 33 minutes.
Q7:
On 25 Feburary in Cairo Find:
a- The altitude angle of the sun.
b- The azimuth angle of the sun.
c- If noon is at 12 O’clock sharp at what time sun sets?
d- The azimuth angle of the sun at sunset.

a-

( )

b-

c-

d-
Q8:
The Cairo Tower is 186 m high; find the length and the direction of the
shade on February 25th at
a- Noon
𝜃𝑍
b- 10 AM solar time

( )

S
a-
b-
 Extra Work
A Temperature-Based Model for Estimating Monthly
Average Daily Global Solar Radiation in China

1CAS Key Laboratory of Renewable Energy, Guangzhou Institute of Energy

Conversion, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510640, China
2University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
3College of Mechanical and Energy Engineering, Jimei University, Xiamen
361021, China
4State Key Laboratory of Multiphase Flow in Power Engineering, Xi'an
Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China
Received 18 August 2013; Accepted 5 December 2013; Published 29
January 2014
Academic Editors: M. Cepin, H. Hasenauer, A. J. N. Khalifa, and A.
Piacentino
Copyright © 2014 Huashan Li et al. This is an open access article distributed
under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided
the original work is properly cited.

Abstract
Since air temperature records are readily available around the world, the
models based on air temperature for estimating solar radiation have been
widely accepted. In this paper, a new model based on Hargreaves and Samani (HS)
method for estimating monthly average daily global solar radiation is
proposed. With statistical error tests, the performance of the new model is
validated by comparing with the HS model and its two modifications
(Samani model and Chen model) against the measured data at 65
meteorological stations in China. Results show that the new model is more
accurate and robust than the HS, Samani, and Chen models in all climatic
regions, especially in the humid regions. Hence, the new model can be
recommended for estimating solar radiation in areas where only air
temperature data are available in China.

1. Introduction

Solar radiation data are essential for designing solar energy devices.
However, the measurement of solar radiation is not easily available due to
the cost and techniques involved [1]. The limited coverage of the
measurement indicates that there is a need to establish theoretical
methods for estimating solar radiation. Among the methods developed,
those based on empirical correlations using commonly measured
meteorological elements have attracted great attention owing to lower
data requirement and computation cost [2].
The widely used correlations for estimating solar radiation are mainly based
on sunshine duration and air temperature. In fact, the models estimating
solar radiation from sunshine duration are generally more accurate than
those involving other meteorological observations [3–6]. However,
sunshine duration is not as readily available as air temperature data at
standard meteorological stations [7, 8]. So, it is meaningful to elaborate
models that estimate solar radiation based on air temperature as an
alternative.
Two common approaches estimating solar radiation from air temperature
use the methods of Hargreaves and Samani [9] (HS) and Bristow and
Campbell [10] (BC). Since the establishment of the two models, many
investigations concerning the HS and BC models have been carried out on
the improvement in prediction accuracy and general validity, which were
reviewed in detail by Liu et al. [2]. The HS model is primarily intended for
application in monthly calculation [11]. Although the BC model is superior
to the HS model on daily global solar radiation calculation in some studies
[2, 3, 12], however, it is not as good as the HS model in estimation of
monthly average solar radiation [13, 14]. The report from Bandyopadhyay
et al. [13] that estimates solar radiation for 29 stations across India showed
that the HS model and its modifications (Annandale et al. [15], Samani [16],
and Allen [11, 17] models) outperform the BC model in monthly calculation.
Similarly, Meza and Varas [14] demonstrated that the revised HS
correlation, namely, Allen [11, 17] model, has a larger coefficient of
determination than the BC model based on the monthly measured data
from 21 stations in Chile. In addition, the HS model has been widely used
because of its simplicity, and it is recommended in FAO-56 for solar
radiation estimation [2].
However, the performance of the HS and its modifications varies
significantly in different locations [2, 9]. This limits the application of these
models in a large country like China with diversities in climate and
geography. The present work aims to propose a new simple and practical
method that gives good estimates of monthly average daily global solar
radiation from air temperature for all climatic regions. The performance of
the proposed model is validated by comparing with the original HS model
and its two modifications against the measured data at 65 meteorological
stations in China using statistical error tests.

2. Data and Methodology

The measured data of monthly average daily global solar radiation (H,
MJ/m2), monthly average maximum temperature (Tmax, °C), and minimum
temperature (Tmin, °C) at 65 meteorological stations in China from 1971 to
2000 are used in the present paper. These stations cover the four climate
zones and have a diverse range in latitude and altitude with the annual
mean temperature difference between 6.20°C and 16.08°C. The
information of these stations is given in Table 1. Note that the in the
table is according to the definition in (1) as follows.
References:
1. A. A. El-Sebaii, F. S. Al-Hazmi, A. A. Al-Ghamdi, and S. J. Yaghmour,
“Global, direct and diffuse solar radiation on horizontal and tilted surfaces
in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia,” Applied Energy, vol. 87, no. 2, pp. 568–576,
2010.
2. X. Liu, X. Mei, Y. Li et al., “Evaluation of temperature-based global solar
radiation models in China,” Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, vol. 149,
no. 9, pp. 1433–1446, 2009